University Archives Series: Student and University Publications

This post was written by Alina Moody, undergraduate finishing her degree in creative writing. She is an OSCAR student (Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, & Research) and is a copy editor for Broadside. Alina has worked on a variety of projects for Special Collections Research Center over the last two years.

Special Collections Research Center keeps a number of materials from student and university publications dating as early as 1960. This includes everything from university pamphlets handed out during Mason Day festivals to copies of Fourth Estate’s predecessor Broadside. Recently, I have taken on the task of reorganizing and creating an inventory for the Student and University Publication collection to include any recent publications or additions to the collection. I look through each box within the collection and organize the folders inside, giving them a more accurate box number.

Once I’ve finished numbering them, I enter their information (box and folder number, name of the work or description of the materials and the year it was published) in an Excel spreadsheet to create an inventory. Once this process is complete, I will use this inventory to create a finding aid and upload it to our website so patrons can see what we have in this collection. This is a small part of our larger project to make materials within university archives more accessible as many collections still lack finding aids. Patrons will then be able to use these materials more efficiently and will begin to see how many interesting collections we have in university archives (our materials are split into manuscript collections, university archives, and rare books).

While working on this project for Special Collections, I have encountered many older publications that I never knew Mason had. One of the most interesting finds I’ve made while reorganizing, has been Mason’s Expulsion paper. Expulsion was described in its debut issue as a, “not-even-remotely-for-profit, not-even-close-to-being-political organization” to rival Mason’s established newspaper, Broadside. It lived up to its secondary title of “Mason’s Superior Underground Newspaper” through sheer witty sarcasm; it featured weekly articles that made light of George Mason University’s news, often appealing to student’s true feelings about the college experience at Mason. Expulsion ran from 1990 to May of 2006, publishing thirty-two volumes in total.

The cover of Expulsion’s 1999 April Fools issue, which features a (badly) photoshopped spread of former GMU President, Alan Merten, doing a “Merten” Klein underwear photoshoot.

Expulsion’s special Star Wars issue in May of 1999. The cover features Expulsion’s own mission to oppose, “the evil Broadside Campus Empire, led by not so evil emperor, Mertentine.”

To search the collections held at Special Collections Research Center, go to our website and browse the finding aids by subject or title. You may also e-mail us at speccoll@gmu.edu or call 703-993-2220 if you would like to schedule an appointment, request materials, or if you have questions. Appointments are not necessary to request and view collections.